Black Shadows
by Alex aus'ri Kaiser
Summary: The Game has come to Domino City, and all factions are recruiting new Players...
1. Before the Game Begins, Darkness

**Author's Note:** I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! Or Witch Hunter Robin (though the former as a birthday gift would be highly appreciated). I dedicate this chapter to Iggy, Ohmyknee, and the Pocket-Sized Lawyer™. If you don't get it, don't strain yourself.

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**Black Shadows: Prologue**

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The normal sounds of night were the only things that he could hear.

Jacob looked around the half-dead forest, his sharp eyes missing nothing.

Well, almost nothing.

_Where…where is she?_

A cold breeze slithered through the trees, and Jacob drew his cloak around himself.

A movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to look over his shoulder.

_Finally._

A teenage girl walked up the paved road gutted with potholes, her cloak swooping magnificently in the wind. She looked no more than 15, but looks were deceiving in The Game. Jacob estimated her to be around or slightly less than 300.

At least, he hoped she was. Any older, and she'd be much stronger than he was.

He gritted his teeth against the thought, and silently slipped through the thinning treeline to a rocky grove he had located earlier. Hiding in a wedge between two of the biggest boulders, he peeped over a medium-sized boulder to keep an eye on the Player.

She seemed not to notice anything wrong, but Jacob noticed immediately that her stride had quickened ever so slightly. As her cloak whipped back in a particularly strong gust of wind, Jacob gasped.

On her waist, the girl had several chain belts. Considering some of the outfits Jacob had seen they would have been nothing out of the ordinary. What was intimidating about the belts were the runes hanging off the sides.

And Jacob knew that those weren't human runes.

_A Dragon._

Jacob realized he had been holding his breath, and so he breathed in. Rather loudly, in fact. Actually, he had gasped in air so loud that the girl stopped for a fraction of a second to whip her cat-slitted pupils over to a rocky grotto, where she saw nothing. Narrowing her eyes, she stared at it for a moment, before checking her digital watch. She then set off up the road again, faster than ever.

Jacob cautiously removed his head from beneath his arms, his heart racing. _I need to be more careful,_ he thought ruefully.

Peeking through the gap where he had fallen out of, Jacob saw that the girl was nearly at the top of the hill. Swearing silently, he lithely bounded into the ever-thinning undergrowth, barely keeping up with the girl's stride. He checked his watch at the same time she did, and grinned to himself as the girl swore.

The grin vanished off his face, however, as he saw the girl run.

His jaw was on the ground before he remembered that he had spent months planning his ambush, and as such needed to keep up with her.

Except that he was finding it rather difficult to keep his cover while he was sprinting at top speed. Even as fast as he was, he couldn't keep up with the girl. Her legs were a blur, and Jacob estimated that she could easily outrun a car. Or a train. Or a plane, as a matter of fact, if the rumors about Dragons were true.

Distantly, Jacob realized that the sounds of the night had faded.

He nearly tripped when he saw how close they had come to the Fog. But he kept running, and so did she.

Hitting the Fog was like hitting a wall of water at thirty miles per hour. It hurt, and the pain only intensified, but the girl kept running, so Jacob did too.

After what seemed like several years, but was probably only a minute, they had come out of the other side. Jacob found himself once again racing through trees and bushes. Soon he found himself in the Gardens that flanked the Castle's Rim.

Jacob was gasping for air, but the hissing and bubbling of the Lava that separated the Rim from the Castle covered it.

Still running at an astounding speed, the girl reached the Bridge. The Bridge was wooden, and looked as though it would fall apart at any second, but the girl seemed undeterred as she approached it. She leapt, and seemed to hang in the air for a moment, cloak billowing out around her in a black halo, before she nimbly landed on the other side, right at the Castle's Gate.

Jacob abandoned all pretense and began to bound across the bridge, hitting every fifth plank or so. Still, the Bridge was over 1000 planks long, so the girl had plenty of time to whip her head around and glare at him.

Her blue eyes were like ice, and Jacob slowed for a moment, before she turned back to the Gate, tucking a stray strand of her curly blond hair behind her ear. Jacob swore, and picked up the pace as the girl put her hands on each Door, and pushed. The 50-foot Doors groaned on their hinges, before swinging open, revealing the Iceking's Hall.

Ignoring the checkered tiles and the 100-foot soaring windows, the girl strode broadly across the hall, toward the giant slab that had a strange Dragon on it. Because of the Rules, Jacob had never seen what the End was in the Castle, and as such he had no idea what species it was.

The girl was halfway to the End before Jacob had reached the end of the Bridge. He could no longer clearly think for lack of air, and so he pulled a vial from his pocket and splashed some of the white liquid in his mouth. Instantly he found his breath, and he began to run again. As soon as he had gone a fourth of the way to the End, the Doors swung shut and the Gate closed.

Jacob tried to run faster, but the girl had already reached the other end of the hall, gone up the stairs, and she placed her hands on the End. The Dragon's eyes began to glow as blue as the girl's had done, and in their light, Jacob saw its form more clearly.

Its arching neck and rounded head with dagger-like teeth gave Jacob the impression that this was not a Dragon that you meddled in the affairs with lightly. The enormous size of it only added to the effect.

Soon, the Dragon was outlined in blue light, and Jacob saw the swirling characters begin to glide across its surface. The girl stepped back, and Jacob shouted, "NO!"

But he was too late, as the characters swirled faster and faster until the End was the Door of Light, and the girl a black shadow outlined in its brilliance. Jacob struggled to run faster, even though he knew he was too late.

_Thirty steps more…_

A Pillar of Light burst from the Door, through the ceiling.

_Twenty steps more…_

A roar filled the chamber, and Jacob knew it came from the Dragon that was on the End.

_Ten steps more…_

The girl laughed, and stepped into the Light. The Pillar swelled before fading, the roar receding with it.

Jacob leapt up the small set of steps to slam his hands on the blank Slab that had once been the End.

_I was so close! I'm sorry…Abraham…David…I failed you. I couldn't stop their messenger._

And the Castle faded, leaving Jacob standing in a black forest, lush and full of life.

The normal sounds of night were the only things that he could hear.

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**Author's Note: **Well, that was unusual. However, like usual, it will take me a while to update. Anyway, Love and Peace! SPORK! Kaiser out. 


	2. Curfews Are For a Reason

**Author's Note:** This takes place in Japan, but I'm not using the whole "-san" and "-kun" and whatnot, because I really am writing this as it comes to me, and it's coming to me in an American Detective novel version. Blame my muse if you must.

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**Black Shadows Chapter One: Curfews Are For a Reason **

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Chapter 1 

It was 10:00 PM in Domino City, and Joseph Wheeler realized that he was _way_ over his curfew. Because of a run of mysterious murders and accidents in Domino over the past week, Yugi had requested (rather forcefully) that Joey would stay at his house. It had also helped that Joey's father had been in one of the accidents, and was currently in the hospital.

Joey sprinted down the street, cursing, before seeing an alley that led to the street which the Kame Game Store was on. _That could cut 5 minutes off my time easy!_

Joey waited until a car zoomed by before trotting across the road to the alley. He then cautiously began to walk down its length. _Hold on,_ he thought, _this seems a lot darker…and longer…than I thought. Crap, the time! Gotta run-_

Shaking his head to clear it of any stupid thoughts, Joey sprinted down the alley.

_Is it me or are the walls closing in?_

Joey soon began to feel pressure, and it really did look like that the walls were creeping in, that the buildings on either side were starting to move together.

Joey ran faster, but it seemed to him that things were coming out of the shadows, stretching their limbs to grab him in his mad dash down the alley.

_OK, now I know why Gramps said 9:00. Please, whoever's out there, if I get through this, I'll promise to never break curfew ever again in my life!_

The exit was closing-it was shutting-he never was going to make it-

_-HOLY--LET ME OUT!_

And as he thought the name, he flew over the exit of the alley, out onto the peaceful street. His breath came in gasps, and his heart palpitated at a rate much faster than it should have health-wise. Turning around, Joey saw a peaceful alley with nothing but a black cat with blue eyes in it. The cat cocked its head at him as if to say, _what's your problem?_ before it turned away and haughtily walked down the alley.

Shaking in fear, Joey stumbled back, further into the street. _That-what-but-_

His thoughts were cut off as a bright light shone in his eyes, followed by a VROOM that sharply turned into a SCREEEEECH before it all went black

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Ring. Ring. 

"Unh…somebody get it…"

Ring. Ring.

"It could be important-like where your friend Joey is!"

Ring. Ring.

"Grandpa, it's 11:46 at night. If he was going to call, he would've done so sooner."

Ring. Ring.

"Yugi! Get it-never mind."

Ring. Ri-

Click.

"Moshi-moshi, Mutouh residence."

"Is this Sugoroku Mutouh?"

"Yes it is."

"Unh…Grandpa, who is it?"

"I'm calling on behalf of the Domino City Hospital and the Domino City Police department about Mr. Joseph Wheeler. You're listed as his current guardian."

"On behalf of WHO! Dear me, what happened?"

"Grandpa, what's going on? Why are you so pale? Did something happen to Joey?"

"We have-an unusual case. He-"

"Is he hurt?"

"No, he's-um, I think you have to come down here to see this-"

"Calm down, ma'am. What happened?"

"Well, Mr. Wheeler was picked up at 9:13 PM by the Domino City Police. He was hit by a car…but not really. Oh, this is so hard to explain! Please, Mr. Mutouh, you have to come down to the station immediately. Please."

"What do you mean, he was hit by a car but not really-"

"WHAT!"

"Yugi, calm down! How badly is Joey hurt?"

"He isn't! He's perfectly normal…we think."

"Yugi, Joey's not hurt. Ma'am, what do you mean by…that last statement?"

"What is she saying? WHAT HAPPENED!"

"YUGI! BED!"

Pause.

Grumbling. Fading.

Quiet.

"…Sorry ma'am. Now, what happened?"

"Sir, you'll have to come down to the Police Station immediately. Detective Griggs will meet you there. Goodnight."

"What-wait-"

Click.

Silence.

"Why did her voice change?...It must've been just my ears playing tricks on me…It's too late at night for an old man…"

Grumbling. Fading.

Rustling. Jingling.

Click, open.

Click, close.

Click, lock.

Silence.

Rumbling.

Lights go on.

More rumbling.

The lights move away.

Rumbling fades.

The house is quiet.

The house is dark.

A car heads to the center of Domino City.

_Excellent.  
_

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**Author's Note: **And the suspense builds! What happened to Joey (yep, I'm using his/most other peeps' dubbed names because I feel like it)? And who the holy heck is that Dragon from the Prologue? Keep that last question in mind, because Jacob's popping up again soon. How soon? Well…NOT TELLING! Oh, and to assuage my readers' fears, yes, there IS supposed to be a blank in Joey's mental scream. You'll find out later. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAA! coughhack  



	3. A Gamer and a Detective Walk Into a Park

**Author's Note: **Two updates in a row! I guess I just felt a little lonely not having any reviews...Probably because this is way off kilter from KaibaCorp Shorts. Maybe I shouldn't write Suspense. Oh well. Onward!

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**Black Shadows: A Gamer and a Detective Walk Into a Parking Lot...**

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Sugoroku Mutouh wasn't a young man. He wasn't middle aged, and he certainly wasn't just over the hill. 

But tonight, more than ever, he was feeling his age.

A thousand thoughts ran through his head, but he never could focus on one. Doing so drew his attention away from driving, and he almost hit a tree while his thoughts sifted and broiled through his grip, like trying to fill a sieve with sand.

So he focused on driving.

Soon, he had reached the normally dimly-lit building of the Domino City Police Station. Normally being the key word. All the lights were on, and he could see people running around, arguing in groups, or looking stunned. And he could hear them too, which was startling because he was still in his car 50 meters away.

Parking his car in the empty (and what normally would've been creepy without the large amounts of activity inside the police station) parking lot, Sugoroku cautiously got out. A man who had been lounging in the doorway watched Sugoroku get out, before rubbing his stubble and walking over to the older man.

"I assume you're Detective Griggs?" Sugoroku asked the man, unperturbed.

"You assume right. The FBI sent me into Japan to deal with an…unusual case. When the job was finished, I was stuck here for a few months. Then the kid pops up on the radar, and the case looks like what I had to first deal with."

Sugoroku had studied Griggs's face while he had been talking. His gaming instincts told him that the detective wasn't lying, but he knew the man wasn't telling him all that information for nothing. "Why should I believe you? You've talked quite a lot for someone in your business. What purpose do you have telling me this?" Sugoroku questioned, after a pause.

Griggs chuckled. "I'm an honest man, through and through. I just wanted to make sure that you knew me before any crap was slung, so that you would maybe believe me. Your intuition is very good, but I just wanted someone on my side in this thing. They all think I'm crazy in there, so if you'll listen, I'll be very appreciative."

Sugoroku grinned. "I've dealt with a lot of strange things being told to me by my grandson. You can't seem crazy after you hear about the Millennium Items."

Griggs threw back his head in a loud guffaw. "I've heard stories, but-Ahahahaha! Maybe I've struck gold with you."

The two men shared another laugh before Griggs got serious. "But, Sugoroku-may I call you that?"

Sugoroku sobered up as well. "As long as you don't mind me calling you Griggs."

Griggs gave a fleeting smile. "Fair enough. I never liked my first name of Samuel anyway. Anyway, Sugoroku, at first this case started to look like a car accident, plain and simple."

The two men began to walk towards the Station, which had become an uproar over a folder that was being torn apart by all of the people. Papers were flying everywhere, and even some of the more sane-looking persons were almost foaming at the mouth to get something. Griggs sighed and shook his head in disgust, before continuing.

"The reason they're brawling in there is that…things got complicated. As in…the kid who got 'hit'-and here I use the term loosely, because as you'll see later, it looks like the kid trashed the car instead of the usual other way around-was completely unharmed. Unconscious, yeah, with a few scrapes from where he had hit the pavement, but mostly unharmed."

Sugoroku gave Griggs a look. Griggs saw it in the chaotic light that streamed from the madhouse, and grinned. "Yeah, I don't get it either."

Griggs caught Sugoroku staring at the Station, puzzled. "Oh, we'll attempt that later," Griggs told him, "But for now I want to show you the car before Forensics or whatever takes it and turns it into even more scrap metal for the sake of 'analyzing' it."

The two men walked in silence, Griggs occasionally running his hand through his dirt-brown short hair, Sugoroku giving a furtive glance over his shoulder whenever the noise from the Station peaked.

After a minute, they had reached a side lot that neighbored the Station. Sugoroku immediately knew which one of the many junked cars, police, civilian, or otherwise, was the one that had 'hit' Joey.

Three spaces down from the end, what used to be a black sports car sat in a heap. From the back it would have looked normal enough, but from the front…

A pile of charred scrap metal lying next to the car used to be the motor. But it had taken little damage in comparison to the framework of the car. The entire front of the car was in all directions, melted and warped into an eerie resemblance of an explosion, except that the metal went in all ways except frontward. Sugoroku mentioned this to Detective Griggs in a cowed voice.

"Yeah…apparently the kid was right in the front of the car…looks almost like the car hit a landmine, huh?" Griggs reflected, "But all the tests that we took on the metal…well…"

Sugoroku looked at the other man. "After seeing this, and knowing what my grandson's actually been doing when he duels, it's hard for me to not believe something."

Griggs chuckled. "I shouldn't have worried." Then he composed himself. "You have to understand…that boy'll disappear lickety-split as soon as this gets around."

Sugoroku made an impatient sound. "I know when to keep my mouth shut!"

Sighing, Griggs said despairingly, "I suppose I can't hold off telling you. According to lab analysis, it looks as if the kid had some sort of…spherical barrier made of lava protecting him when he trashed the car."

Stunned, Sugoroku gaped at Griggs. "Now shadow magic, I can understand, but…_lava?_"

Griggs gave him a sarcastic smile. "Yes. Lava. And before it was carted off, there was a piece of metal that had an unknown symbol on it that apparently matches a burn on the kid's left shoulder."

"But…you wouldn't have called me here to just tell me that you don't know anything, right?"

"Right. The massive chaos back at the station is due to the fact that the unusual case I was called in for originally involved someone who had been carrying a book filled with as-yet untranslated symbols in it. Lucky for us the government didn't want to acknowledge the existence of…magical powers, and so the guy was given a visa. This guy disappeared, but I contacted him about an hour ago. At first he wasn't interested, but then I described to him the symbol. He's at the hospital now, with the kid. We're going there next, if you don't mind."

Overwhelmed, Sugoroku just said, "Well, I'm glad that you had that woman call me, because I'd rather see all this for myself than have to hear about it secondhand, such as in the newspaper."

Griggs had been pulling out his car keys when he was talking, but at Sugoroku's innocuous comment he stopped. "Woman? I had Hardt Vedras call you. He's a renowned forensics professor, training new agents for us, but we needed him on the team for his expert advice. He'd finished his part of the work first because there was nothing logical he could say to explain what happened. Another reason I had him call you is because I knew he'd be able to contact you without raising a fuss."

The two men stared at each other. "But…if that wasn't Professor Vedras…who was it?"

Detective Griggs seemed to be at a loss for words. "I…don't know. I'll look into it later. We'd better see our 'victim' now before he disappears on us, though."

And with that, the detective and the gamer drove to Domino City Hospital in silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

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**Author's Note:** suspenseful music plays in background What's going on? What could have happened? What will happen next? One thing's for sure, whoever can spot the easter egg in this chapter gets bragging rights for being really smart! If nobody gets it...eh, it'll be revealed later on anyways.  



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